Europe · by road
Moving a house to Europe
The same survey, the same inventory and the same crew as a domestic move, with a customs file assembled on top of it. What changes most on a European job is not the border — it is how far the load has already travelled inside Britain before it reaches the coast.
Four routes run often enough to have their own pages. Anywhere else in western Europe is a question we will answer straight.
The four routes with their own pages
On these four we hold clearing agents, know the entry formalities and send vehicles often enough to price them honestly. Each page carries the road route, the regions we deliver into, and a document list split between what you obtain and what we obtain.
Removals from the UK to France
How your load reaches the crossing matters more, on this route, than which crossing it uses.
- Normandy and the Cotentin
- Brittany and the Loire
- Paris and the Île-de-France
- Charente and the Dordogne
Removals from the UK to Spain
Retirements to the Costas dominate, and a high proportion are downsizes at the same time.
- Madrid and the centre
- Catalonia and Barcelona
- Valencia, Alicante and Murcia
- Andalucía and the Costa del Sol
Removals from the UK to Italy
Restoration purchases in Tuscany and Umbria are the commonest reason British households take this route.
- Milan, the lakes and Lombardy
- Piedmont and Turin
- Tuscany
- Umbria and Le Marche
Removals from the UK to Portugal
It is also the route where the far end runs latest, so the holding arrangement matters most here.
- Lisbon and Cascais
- The Silver Coast
- The Algarve
- Porto and the north
How a European job runs
It opens exactly like a move from Leeds to Bristol: a survey, a measured volume, a written inventory. What changes is the standing of that inventory. It stops being our working list and becomes a document an official may sit down and read, which is why the wording gets attention that a domestic list does not need.
From there the vehicle works its way to Kent, crosses on the Folkestone shuttle, and the routes separate on the far side: west and south for France, straight down for Spain and Portugal, east then over the Alps for Italy. The export declaration is raised before the terminal and the import entry lodged at the destination against the same list.
The domestic leg is the variable
This is the part that is specific to a national firm. From Kent or Sussex, getting to the crossing is barely a question. From Cumbria, Devon or Aberdeenshire it is most of the schedule, and pretending otherwise produces a departure time nobody can keep.
So we plan the British half first and the European half second. That occasionally produces a collection day earlier than customers expect, and it is always better explained at quotation than discovered the week before.
Collecting from the main cities
Where a continental run is already in the diary, second and third pickups on the way south cost far less than a separate job. We regularly build European loads out of London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bristol on the same vehicle. Tell us where in Britain yours starts and we will say plainly whether it can join something or needs its own.
Two things we will not put in writing
A transit time before the route, the load and the vehicle arrangement are settled — the truthful spread is far too wide to compress into one figure, so the quotation carries an estimated window for your own consignment instead. And a duty position, which turns on your residence status and your documents, so we set out the conditions rather than imply an outcome.
Europe
Questions about moving to Europe
01 Which countries do you run to?
France, Spain, Italy and Portugal on established road routes, each with its own clearing agent and its own page here. The same vehicles reach Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, so ask. Where a destination is not routine for us we say so rather than learn it on your move.
02 Do you ship outside Europe?
No. We are a road firm, and a container to Australia or a crate to Toronto is a different trade with different insurance and different expertise behind it. We will point you towards somebody who does it properly rather than take the booking and hand it on.
03 We are in the north of England. Does that make a European move harder?
Not harder, but it makes the domestic leg the larger half of the planning. A load from Newcastle has most of a day's driving behind it before it reaches Kent, so either the vehicle departs earlier than you expect or the load joins one already routed south. We will set out both.
04 Dedicated vehicle or a shared load?
A dedicated vehicle carries your goods alone and leaves when you say. A shared load travels with other consignments going the same way: less to pay, departing when the route fills rather than when you choose. Fixed dates argue for dedicated; flexibility usually makes sharing better value.
05 Who assembles the paperwork?
We do, from the inventory taken at your property and working with an agent at the destination. The rows we cannot obtain are the ones attached to you personally — a tax number, a residence registration, a consular certificate. Each country page separates the two clearly.
06 Can goods be held in the UK first?
Frequently, and on the longer routes it is close to standard. Overseas purchases run late with great regularity. Collect on the date that is certain, hold the goods listed, and build the export file from that list once the far end is real.
Where in Europe?
The country, the size of the house, and where in Britain it is leaving from. Those three between them decide the vehicle, the route and the paperwork.